Sponsored by the CIC Materials Chemistry Division
The Award for Research Excellence in Materials Chemistry is presented to a Canadian citizen or landed immigrant who has made an outstanding contribution to materials chemistry while working in Canada.
The 2026 awards are now open for submission.
Nominate yourself or a colleague deserving of recognition.
Press release: Award winners will be recognized at the x2026 Conference.
View the Terms of Reference and list of Past Winners
The 2025 winner of the Award for Research Excellence in Materials Chemistry is:
Matthew J. Harrington
McGill University
Matthew Harrington is Professor and Canada Research Chair Tier 2 in Green Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at McGill University, as well as co-director of the McGill Institute of Advanced Materials (MIAM) and director of the McGill Chemistry Characterization (MC2) facility. He received his Ph.D. in 2008 from the University of California, Santa Barbara in the lab of J. Herbert Waite. This was followed by a Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in the Department of Biomaterials, where he was later a research group leader from 2010 until 2017. His research is focused on understanding biochemical structure–property relationships in the function and formation of biological materials and applying extracted design principles for the development and sustainable production of bio-inspired materials.